


The Greenhouse

by ericsonclan



Series: OG World [5]
Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Comfort/Angst, F/M, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:40:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23419894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ericsonclan/pseuds/ericsonclan
Summary: Ruby and Aasim are working together in the greenhouse and Aasim notices a scar on Ruby's arm. When he asks her about it, her story brings back memories of the day the greenhouse was attacked.
Relationships: Aasim/Ruby (Walking Dead: Done Running)
Series: OG World [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815361
Kudos: 3





	The Greenhouse

**Author's Note:**

> My first Rusim fic! <3  
> (by Laura)

Ruby stood up to wipe the sweat off her brow, surveying the work they had completed today. “I suppose that just about does it. Thanks for all your help today, Aasim,”

“My pleasure,” Aasim dusted the dirt from his pant legs. “Keeping the garden weeded is a lot more work than I expected,”

“You didn’t use to help out much here back in the day, did ya?”

“No, I got tapped pretty early on for hunting duty, and it just made sense to stay there. I wanted to perfect my craft so that I could do the most good in providing for the school.”

Ruby shook her head with a smile. “There ya go again, Aasim. Always the perfectionist,”

“True. But you like me about that, right?” Aasim shot her a smile he hoped was charming. They’d only been dating for a few weeks since all the craziness with the Delta had ended. It was still sort of mind-blowing to him that he actually had a girlfriend. When Ruby had come up to him that night after spending hours struggling to get Clementine stable and Violet to sleep, her eyes red from lack of sleep and unshed tears, he hadn’t known what to do for her. So he just hugged her, since that was all he could do, letting her cry it out on his shoulder. He didn’t think either of them had expected anything to come of that. But here they were, officially boyfriend and girlfriend now that they had announced it to the others, and completely lost as to what should come next.

Ruby smiled. “Don’t figure I’d be able to date ya if I didn’t find that charming. Take the weedin’, for example. If I’d asked Willy or Louis to help me, they’d pull up half the plants in the greenhouse, leave most of the weeds and call it a day. You actually made sure to listen through all the explanations till you were sure ya knew a weed from a veggie. Ya gotta respect that kind of focus in a man,”

Aasim looked down at the planter, feeling awkward at receiving such straightforward praise. “It wasn’t really a big deal,”

“Are ya kidding me? Aasim, if it wasn’t for you, I think I’d’ve just about lost my mind by now! What with Violet and Clementine recuperatin’ and, well, everyone we lost, I wouldn’t be able to do all this extra work! Louis and Omar do their part and Willy and AJ are always tryin’ to help out, but you’ve been pullin’ double and even triple duty these last few weeks. It’s made a world of difference,”

Aasim shrugged nonchalantly. “Not like I could really do otherwise. And I’m certainly not going to leave you with all the work. You’ve been doing more than any of us, taking care of the girls in the dorms, the greenhouse, fortifying the walls…” he paused for a second, as if nervous to act on his intentions, then resolutely reached for her hand, taking it in his own. “You’re amazing, Ruby,”

Now it was her turn to blush. Aasim liked the way the deep pink on her cheeks contrasted with her pale skin. He would have to fluster her more often. As his thumb gently caressed her palm, he noticed a scar along her wrist that he’d never taken note of before. Reaching out, he ran his other finger alongside it. The scar stood out against the dirt on her hands, stark white, running several inches up her arm. He looked up at her with concern. “When did this happen?”

Ruby tugged her hand out of his grasp, holding the wrist against her chest. “That’s been there a long time. It’s nothing to worry ‘bout,”

The way she had reacted made him seriously doubt that. “Is there a story behind it? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,”

Ruby looked thoughtful as she stared in the direction of the greenhouse door, the one that led further inside to the lab. “It happened the day the greenhouse fell,”

He remembered that day. He had been in the music room at the time, organizing the books in there. Screaming had come from outside; he couldn’t figure out the direction. By the time he’d made it outside, it was all over. Ruby and some of the other students had told them the story through shaky breaths: how Miss Martin had shielded them when the walkers broke in, how she’d pushed them toward the front of the greenhouse, urging them to run. And how they’d heard her scream behind the closed door. Ruby and one of the other girls had wanted to go back for Miss Martin, but by the time a scouting party had been assembled and they reached the greenhouse, the door was already jammed shut. Ms. Martin had barricaded herself in after she’d been bit, desperate to make sure that she would not harm the children. From that day onward, Marlon had declared the greenhouse off-limits. A dead zone.

Aasim wondered if he should press Ruby further, if it was the right thing to do. She hadn’t shut the conversation down. Perhaps it would do her good to get all this out in the open. “Do you… remember how that happened?” He gestured toward the scar.

Ruby nodded. “I didn’t for a long time. When the walkers got in… it all happened so fast. I remember Miss Martin pushing me forward and as I ran I felt a sudden pain in my arm. For a second I thought I’d got bit, but there weren’t any walkers near me. I didn’t even notice the blood till Omar pointed it out to me. Wasn’t till Clementine opened it up again and we all got inside that I saw it,” She gestured at a nearby planter. “One of the nails was sticking out on the side – hadn’t been hammered in right. I fixed it the next time we came in,” She held out her arm, tracing a finger along the scar. “You’d think there’d be a more interesting story to it, right? That I’d have gotten it fightin’ off a walker or steppin’ in front to protect someone. But no, I got it by running away, like a coward,”

“Ruby, you were a kid back then. We all were. No one could have expected you to do anything else,”

“Maybe so, but it sure would feel better to have _somethin’_ to look back on from that day to prove that I at least tried,” Ruby’s eyes were misty now. “Hell, when we found her back there in the lab, tied to the planter….” She choked on the word, swallowing roughly. “I shoulda at least been able to put her out of my misery. But instead I asked Clementine to do it for me. I couldn’t even bear to look at her, what she’d become,” The tears were coming in earnest now.

Desperate to stop the rising tide, Aasim reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, handing it to Ruby. She took it gratefully, wiping off her eyes and rubbing at her reddened face. She handed it back to him with a rueful chuckle.

“Shoulda figured you’d be the type to have a hankie on hand,”

“I wish I could do more,” Aasim whispered, shoving it back in his pocket.

Ruby shrugged. “It’s the way of the world now, living with loss. Hell, we’ve lost so many in these past few weeks. Marlon, Mitch, Tenn… I should be crying for them, but here I am instead shedding more tears for Miss Martin when she’s been gone longer than all of them,”

“Grief is funny that way. I haven’t cried much lately either. Feels like there’s no time to cry when things are this bad,” He turned to Ruby, taking her hand in his own once more. “I don’t know if this makes sense, but when I see you cry – that night after the Delta and right now – it helps. It reminds me to keep feeling things. That even after all we’ve lost, we can still care. We can still mourn. That death still means something,”

Ruby looked up at him in confusion, her eyes still wet and red.

“Shit, did that make any sense? It sounded awful, didn’t it, like I enjoy watching you cry. That’s not it at all!”

“No… I understand. Not completely, but I think I get it. After Miss Martin died, I found myself wanting to cry, but something kept stopping me. I think it was the fact that the person who I used to come to when I had a problem or something needing fixin’ was Miss Martin, so I couldn’t figure out who to talk to now that she was gone. I didn’t have anybody to talk to for a long time, not about the serious, sad things at least,” She looked up at Aasim. “And then you were there. When I didn’t think I could take another day, you were there for me. Ready to listen. To let me cry. I can’t thank you enough for that,”

“I’ll always be there for you,” Aasim took a step closer, taking her other hand in his. “I swear, whenever you need me, I will be there. You don’t need to hesitate,”

A soft smile flitted across Ruby’s lips. “To think all these years I wanted a hero to jump out of a fairy tale and take me away from this place, when I had a real-life prince right before my eyes,”

What could he say after that? Aasim opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, speechless.

Smiling, Ruby went up on her toes and placed a kiss on Aasim’s lips. It was over before he could even wrap his mind around the fact that it had happened. Ruby had actually kissed him.

Ruby chuckled. “Well golly, I expected more of a reaction than that!”

Shit. He had to do something. Had to say something.

_Quick, Aasim, be cool. Be suave._

“That was so much better than I ever imagined,”

Ruby blushed, hiding her face against his shoulder. “You sure know how to flatter a girl, don’t ya? We gotta get moving though. Otherwise Omar will come hunt us down for making him wait so long on the veggies,”

“Right!” Aasim exclaimed, picking up the pails. “I’ll take this to him. You go check on Clementine and Violet,”

As they headed out of the greenhouse, shutting the door behind them, Ruby grabbed hold of one of the buckets, freeing up Aasim’s arm so she could intertwine it with her own. “After I’m back from checkin’ on the girls and dinner and chores are done, do you want to go somewhere special? Just the two of us?”

Aasim’s heart did a backflip in his chest. “I would love that,”

“Alright then, let’s hurry and get these dropped off, then I’ll be back before you know it,”

Aasim smiled down at Ruby, meeting her ready smile with one of his own. “I can’t wait,”


End file.
